A Likely Story

by William De Morgan

Lucinda, you see, might have gone on like that about Oliver; only no doubt the memory of old precepts hung about her, and acted as I trust my remonstrance would have done in the case of my hypothetical daughter. Anyhow, I do think that the time-honoured usage which keeps girls as ignorant of life as possible, so that they shall be docile when a judicious Hymen offers them a marriage with a suitable parti, ought at least, as a set-off, to go hand-in-hand with leniency towards this ignorance when it betrays its possessor into an indiscretion she has no means of gauging the dangers of. For my belief is that the wickedness of her action seemed purely academical to Lucinda. And Oliver knew how to manage cases of this sort, bless you!

As for him, I readily admit that he was not nice, but I take the testimonials to his nastiness as complimentary. When an Italian audience pelts Iago with rotten eggs, it is accepted by the actor as heartfelt praise. And you must have Devils, as well as Fairies, when it's in a Pantomime, as we all know. An unhappy author whom lack of material for copy has nearly qualified for Earlswood cannot go on for ever writing about good people. He must have a villain, please, sooner or later!

Nevertheless, some of my correspondents want to deprive me of this innocent luxury. Such an appeal as the following makes me feel that I may have to "leave the killing out, when all is done."

"Dear sir, can any 'success' that meets your latest story compensate for the pain, and—so personal have you made our relations to you—the humiliation so many of us feel?

"Why leave the heights—the sunny hill-slopes—where we met you as a wise, sweet older brother, and lingered long after your story was over, with stilled and strengthened hearts?

"I am sure none of us is happier, and none certainly is better for breathing the sickening air into which you have led us...."

Now, if I had published this story after a manifesto warning, cautioning, and earnestly entreating all readers who expected it to be Victorian and Suburban to keep their money in their pockets, I should not be feeling, as I do now, that the writer of the above letter had been entrapped into reading it under false pretences. I can only offer humble and heartfelt apology to the writers, English as well as American, of the many letters I have received, practically of the same tenor as the above.

But I am left in a dilemma. I cannot consider myself bound to make my next net volume exclusively Victorian, Suburban, kindly, gossipy, button-holy—I rather like that word—in the face of some very strong encouragements to have another go-in at Barts, or their equivalents, of evil dispositions, or, perhaps I should say, of Mediæval dispositions; for I am countenanced by many sporting chronologists in attaching a meaning to this word at war with my boyish understanding of it, which stopped the "moyen âge" at the Reformation. However, it doesn't matter; this is all in confidence. I cannot very well cite these encouragements. They form part of a most liberal and intelligent series of reviews—not unmixed praise by any means—which I am sticking at odd times in a big book, to which I shall have to allude more particularly presently. It is enough for us now that several of them speak of "An Affair of Dishonour" as its author's best production, so far. After that I must really be Mediæval, or Marry-come-up, or whatever one ought to call it, a little more. There is no way out.

A reviewer of an isolated and forcible genius also has a share in inducing me to try the same line again. I want to be reviewed by him, please, as often as possible. There is a healthy and bracing tone in his lightest word. Listen:

"A story-teller ought to be able to tell a story. There is a story in 'An Affair of Dishonour,' but I pity the reader who tries to excavate it. He must tie a wet towel round his head, and clench his teeth, and prepare to face hours of digging and scraping. And when he has excavated the story from the heavy clay of the style, he will ask why the author took so much trouble to bury it so deep in affectation... Mr. De Morgan tries to copy the language of the seventeenth century, but he copies it like a schoolboy.... To make the mess complete, the last chapter is taken from a manuscript.